Wait for the assult on the second-hand market
With these XaaS gigs, we are seeing increasing amounts of subscription hardware. You "own" it, it's in a rack either in your data centre, or in somebody else's. But the features it has are either subscription-only, or the "perpetual" "license" is only valid for the first purchaser.
So the old option of buying yesterday's Dell 1U servers and stacking them up will no longer work. Not only will the cost of using them be prohibitive (those subscription fees) but if the manufacturer ends support - the kit will stop working or at least, will only work in unsubscribed mode.
So the only option for compute will be to lease the boxes, or lease the capacity. No ownership for you!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
